I am ugly. I am unattractive. I know that my skin is awful, my hair is greasy, and society simply does not permit women to weigh as much as I do.

But, mind you, this is not the same as having low self-esteem. Because when I look in the mirror, I hate my body, not myself. I simply shake my head and think, “This isn’t me. This mediocre sack of meat isn’t me. I’m just renting it out, driving it around. It’s a tool. It’s a vehicle. I use it to take myself places that I need to go, and that’s all there is to it.”

Ok fine, I’m not Zen enough to actually believe I can escape with that train of thought. The truth is, I am frustrated with the irreconcilable disconnect between my pride and my presence. The acne mask and the fat suit egregiously fail to conform with my mental mockups of my perfectly badass self. I suppose the only real solution then, besides undergoing extensive surgeries, is to upload my conscience to a supercomputer.

Maybe the Singularity will happen, and everything will be great, but in the meantime, I much prefer the Internet to real life interactions because most of you haven’t got a clue as to what I look like, and if you don't like me it's because my ideas suck and not because you find my face unpleasant. The Internet allows me to temporarily abandon the limitations of my subpar physical avatar.

Even if people are especially curious about my appearance, I only allow them to make vague inferences based off a single profile picture, uniform across all my social media haunts, taken a very long time ago at a surprisingly flattering angle, in which I actually manage to trick them into thinking I look quite average. Well, I don’t. I’ve gained 50 pounds since then, and academic stress makes my acne flare up like nobody’s business.

Regardless, I decided a while back that everyone has his or her own strengths and weaknesses, and I would do well to focus on my strengths instead of my weaknesses. Even people who are bad at everything are less bad at some things than they are at others. After some introspection, I concluded that I was less bad at learning things than I was at looking pretty, so I would ultimately benefit far more from sharpening my skills and pursuing a technical career than from trying in vain to undo the effects of losing the genetic lottery.

As for the romantic side of things, I avoid unnecessary heartbreak by keeping myself from harboring silly delusions about reciprocated love in the first place. I have rationalized that it is okay for me to be ugly because 1) marriage is not the optimal arrangement for everyone and 2) the human race would likely carry on just fine without my genetic contribution.

I am irritated with the cliché that “everyone is beautiful” because surface friendliness and pretending to be PC don’t solve anything. It doesn’t help the young girl with confidence issues because even if you’re “nice” enough to tell her that she’s beautiful, are you nice enough to, like, actually date her? Words mean nothing without actions, yet it’s patently unfair to expect people not to be shallow because at the end of the day, beauty is beauty, attraction is attraction, and sexual desire is governed by deep-rooted evolutionary impulses that people don’t understand and can’t control.

It would be far more useful to promote the idea that people can contribute to the world in a variety of interesting and fulfilling ways besides making others salivate over their bodies. You can make original scientific breakthroughs! You can regale people with tales of heroic conquest! You can build products that make people’s lives easier! But I guess changing the world wouldn’t make for an effective beauty products campaign.

Personally, hopefully without straying too far into territory I have no expertise in, I think that almost (?) all women -- and no doubt men but this post happens to be about women -- sell themselves short. Do you think you're fat? Maybe you are, but a lot of people are legitimately attracted by that. Skin bad? Tons of people seriously don't care. Etc.

Anyway I thought this woman has an interesting perspective so I shared it, although she's essentially preaching to the choir here ... it's a rather obvious point that women ideally ought to garner self-worth from more than their looks. So. Thoughts?

I kind of felt the same reading that. She's mentions the singularity as a way out of her situation. Exercise, proper diet, taking a shower, and washing her face are all strangely absent. I know those things aren't easy, and I don't want to come off as insensitive... but those things can and will produce results a hell of a lot sooner than the singularity.

The reality is that the vast majority of people can look acceptable/neutral if groomed and dressed well. With confidence/personality, even a homely person can present as "attractive" (if not aesthetically so).

It would be far more useful to promote the idea that people can contribute to the world in a variety of interesting and fulfilling ways besides making others salivate over their bodies. You can make original scientific breakthroughs! You can regale people with tales of heroic conquest! You can build products that make people’s lives easier! But I guess changing the world wouldn’t make for an effective beauty products campaign.

The thing is, you can have both/either. You can be a stunningly sexy scientist with a wonderfully happy home life and cure cancer. But you can also be a brilliant, hideously ugly mathematician with an adoring partner and a mind-blowing sex life.

Of course, she may very well not be in that vast majority. I get the sense that some people who have traditionally "ugly" faces or features just can't see the point in controlling their weight, skin, hygiene, etc, because they'll never hit some sort of Platonic ideal no matter how hard they work so why bother.

I have never been overly confident in my physical appearance. I'm not one to "lift weights" and be "buff". Put it this way, I've never been excited to take off my shirt at the beach. That said, I've never been swimming with my shirt on either -I'm not to that point.. yet. I had a girlfriend once tell me that I had "skinny fat," meaning that with clothes on I appear fit but when they're off I'm out of shape. -True enough.

But I've never been really keen on my looks. I always feel I look just good enough to not offend. But then, I look at pictures of me from the past and I think to myself, "wow, I used to look great."

Recently I realized that someday, I'll look at myself in a picture and think that the current version of myself looked, "great." Therefore, why not skip the waiting period and just think I look great now?

So yeah, from here on out, I think I look great. I'm fuckin' hot. Why? Because future me is going to remember this version of me fondly.

I think that almost (?) all women -- and no doubt men but this post happens to be about women -- sell themselves short.

I have thought on this a lot, and I think a large part of that is standards. It's not, "I think I'm fat", it's, "I think I'm too fat for someone like her." Not "bad skin", but, "she wouldn't like my skin."

Eventually I think you forget about trying to meet the standards of someone else and become happy with yourself.

Personally I define myself as average in every way, looks wise. I'm more worried about a girl being okay with my weird personality quirks, actually.

On that note, and this may just be personal experience, but the adage "opposites attract" seems like something that's actually true a lot of the time.

I have thought on this a lot, and I think a large part of that is standards. It's not, "I think I'm fat", it's, "I think I'm too fat for someone like her."

For guys, there can be pressure to be or at least look physically fit and while a lot of girls and guys like the fit look, they might actually prefer something else in a partner. Now, I'm not the most in shape guy ever, though I do exercise and have a naturally muscular build, but I can't remember the last time I saw my abs. My stomach doesn't even hang over my belt, but there is some jiggle.

What's surprised me though, is the number of times past girlfriends have made some kind of comment along the lines of, "don't get any more muscular" or "don't get any leaner" followed by "I like putting my head on your stomach". <shrug>

In my experience, girls that are into me like strong arms, shoulders, chest and legs, but they want some cuddliness too. Most men have at least a bit of a belly and a lot of women don't mind that.

People are into all kinds of stuff. I used to know a guy who looked like he'd have no problem (but not a huge amount of success either) with girls who once told me that he was into fat older women and he made it pretty clear that when he said "older" he meant old and when he said "fat" he meant fat. I didn't believe him until he went on a trip and never made his flight. Turns out he'd shacked up with such a woman when he stopped to get a quick beer before heading to the airport and was so enthralled they spent three days in bed together. Personally, yuck. But y'know . . . people.

I remember looking over at a girl sitting at a distance from me and thinking 'she's so ugly, who would ever marry her?' ( I was pretty stupid and immature back then) and then after an year or two, she didnt change much, I dont think she changed at all, but I wouldnt know, and I got started talking to her through a mutual friend and I remember talking to her over lunch one day and she was saying something and looked really cute and I was thinking 'I'd ask her out this moment if she showed as much as a sign that shes interested in me that way'

That day I understood it, deep inside, not the superficial thought, that theres more to beauty than looks.

Beauty is like first impressions maybe, it can only help you so much and it doesnt really matter if you have the other stuff that really matters.

Looks are important because they provide the first impression of yourself to others, in most situations. Prior to a person hearing you speak, or learning your quirks and personality they know how you look. It's a powerful aspect, because sight typically comes first. It sounds superficial but every person I've approached has been because I liked how they looked first, and then everything else came after.

That said, I do think that a lot of people go way too far with deriving self-worth from their looks, and fretting about every little aspect of their body. I think a person that is happy with their overall body is better off than a person that isn't, and there really is something for everyone in terms of what is attractive. We all have our preferences.

I used to be really down on my body, despite not being overweight and not having terrible skin or anything of that sort. It's one of those things where how can you expect others to be happy with you if you're happy with you. First you must conquer yourself, and then others. I agree with the sentiments of selling yourself short as opposed to being overly confident.

Not to make a sweeping gender statement, but I've seen that in various forms multiple times. So there's a line to walk. And I don't know if I agree that it's better to sell yourself short strictly in terms of your gain, because who knows what opportunities you're missing.

EDIT: take for instance thenewgreen's conclusions below. He started off average and by the end of his post he was "fucking hot." I think it suits him.